Nikolaus von Falkenhorst

Nikolaus von Jastrzembski (17 January 1885-18 June 1968), later known as Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, was a Colonel-General of the German Wehrmacht during World War II. He commanded the Army of Norway during the war, and he retired in 1944.

Biography
Nikolaus von Jastrzembski was born on 17 January 1885 in Breslau, Silesia, German Empire (present-day Wroclaw, Poland) to a Polish military family. He later changed his name to the German-sounding "Falkenhorst", meaning "eagle's nest". Von Falkenhorst served in the Imperial German Army during World War I, and he served in the Freikorps and Reichswehr during the Interwar period. From 1933 to 1935, he served as Nazi Germany's military attache in Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania, and he led the XXI Armeekorps during the 1939 invasion of Poland.

Falkenhorst was also given responsibility for the invasion of Scandinavia in 1940, and Falkenhorst - who was given almost no time by Adolf Hitler to plan out the invasions of Denmark and Norway - used a tourist guidebook's map of Norway to draft a plan. Hitler approved this plan, which would succeed in occupying Norway. Falkenhorst was promoted to Colonel-General and given command of the Army of Norway occupation forces in Norway and in northern Finland, and he also planned out an invasion of Sweden by 10 German divisions. On 18 December 1944, he was transferred to the reserves, and he was arrested after the war. In 1946, he was sentenced to death by the Allied Powers for ordering for captured commandos to be executed as spies, but the sentenced was later commuted to 20 years in prison. He was released from Werl prison in 1953 due to ill health, and he died in Holzminden, West Germany in 1968 after suffering from a heart attack.